Yes, it was jolly true too!
And his own words, spoken an hour ago, echoed back again: “Precious little I ever cared for the women-folk’s jaw!”
It was as they said: he had killed her, and he had never cared for her, he had never mourned her, he had been drunk the day of her very funeral; he never missed her now.
He stumbled on. The winter twilight had faded long since, and the moon had slipped behind a cloud. The lane was quite dark, and he could no longer make out the swish of the white cotton skirt which he had fancied he had seen against the hedgerow. Nevertheless he stumbled on.
The old home lay close at hand; the well-known turning to it struck off here to the left. It stood in a field a little back from the road; there was an apple-tree in front of it and behind it, in the meadow that stretched down to the river, their cow used to feed in the days before his mother had had to sell her.
He stumbled on. Here, by the fence, she was wont to come down of a morning to see him off to work, of an evening to welcome him home, and—yes—often and often o’ night time to watch for him along the dark and lonely road, when he was coming home—as he was coming to-night—full of drink.
Home? Yes, it was home then, little as he had appreciated it.
He stopped at the fence, and steadied himself on its worn and worm-eaten bar.
The moonlight was leaking through the cloud again, and dimly lit the thatched roof of the cottage, whose blank windows and sealed door looked sadly across the field at him.
The latched gate was close to his hand: he opened it and went in, and the moon shone out more brightly.